Love Actually

Hugh Grant's prime minister proves to the world that "love is all around."

By John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time"

Hugh Grant can charmingly double take in any situation and make you believe he is an unwitting and innocent victim of unbearable cultural demands. In first-time director Richard Curtis's "Love Actually," Grant is a na?ve British prime minister, a combination of Tony Blair and Jimmy Carter, with lust in his boyish heart but a value system in tact and ready to defy his urges and the president of the US, played by a randy Bill Bob Thornton, a combination of Bill Clinton and "W" Bush.

This delightfully fluffy Christmas story about the pervasiveness of love in a cynical age cuts among several separate stories of people looking for love, among them a middle-aged Emma Thompson dealing with an errant husband, a loving Laura Linney in unrequited love with a co-worker hunk, and Grant attracted to a servant in his new digs at 10 Downing St.

The funniest segment is Bill Nighy as aging rocker Billy Mack, pulling out all the stops for his cynical Christmas take on a national scale.

But it is Grant's prime minister who finally proves to the world that "love is all around."

John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE's "It's Movie Time," which can be heard streaming at www.wcbe.org Fridays at 3:01 pm and 8:01 pm.